


Hang In There

by patternofdefiance



Series: Prompt Fills [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack-ish, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hyenas, Lions, M/M, Prompt Fill, Sass, gem smuggling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-24 23:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patternofdefiance/pseuds/patternofdefiance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>mindpalaceofversailles asked:<br/>I want a fic where Sherlock and John go on a safari for a case and Sherlock ends up getting them chased by wild animals and they’re stuck up a tree while things prowl around below them</p><p>...and I tried to deliver.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hang In There

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mindpalaceofversailles](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mindpalaceofversailles).



It had started with gem smuggling -

Or was it poaching?

No, it was definitely gem smuggling, although, giving their current circumstances, poaching would have made more sense.

But, now that John has a moment to think back on everything that led to _this_ , that led to _here_ _,_ although poaching would have more naturally led to and more easily explained _being stuck up a_ _tree in the middle of the serengeti_ , it was, in fact, the opal dirt newly discovered in _Australia_ that led them here. _To Africa._

At Mycroft’s behest.

Of course bloody Mycroft would be involved.

"Bloody Mycroft," John mutters, and Sherlock opens his mouth to add something, but John shuts him down with, "Shut up - it’s as much your fault we’re here as it is."

John’s legs are tired. His arms are tired. Every single major muscle group is distressingly fatigued. His head is pounding, and that could be from that solid blow that Jameson had landed, or it could be from the mad scramble through the darkness with no warning, or it could be from dehydration.

It could be the come-down from the adrenaline high, as potent as any John ever experienced in Afghanistan.

Maybe even more so, considering that in Afghanistan he’d never been stuck up a tree with a mad detective flatmate, trapped there really, by the not quite disinterested milling of three lions. A small distance off, a much more interested and more intelligent quartet of hyenas are watching.

Waiting.

Shit.

"Sherlock, I swear to god, if we get out of this - "

"What then?" comes the sullen question from a branch slightly higher than John’s precarious perch. For someone who is literally hanging on for dear life, Sherlock manages to sound petulant, blasé, and mildly annoyed all at once. There is also, if you know how to listen for it - and John bloody Watson bloody well does - the smallest sliver of worry in the detective’s tone. Of the many over- and undertones in that one question, it is perhaps the truest.

John sighs. “Shut up you utter berk and think us out of this situation - it was your thinking that got us here -“

“ _It was not_ ,” Sherlock hisses, suddenly the opposite of blasé. A small corner of John’s mind knows it’s a diversion tactic, a distraction from what slipped through before.

That small corner is keeping itself to itself right now, though.

"Was too, you bloody great git!"

"I am not the one who hared off into the African wilderness after sunset!"

"No, no, _you’re_ the one who made it necessary - why on earth would you bait Jameson like that?!"

"Because he’s an idiot!"

"And what does that make me, then, the sod that followed you to this godforsaken corner of the world? Hmm?"

Sherlock huffs, and it sounds entirely too pleased, so John looks up in time to see the mad man grinning down at him. “Yes,” Sherlock says, and his grin is entirely to lively, his curls a tumbled, roguish mess, his coat (how is he still wearing it, even?) flapping in the night air.

John groans, but it becomes a chuckle, devolves into a helpless giggle. “How is this even…” _Real. My life. Our life._ That last thought makes him pause, and he looks up at Sherlock, who is still looking at him, colour high on his cheeks.

Could be mirth, exertion, or extreme strain from maintaining grip for so long.

John sighs and redoubles his own grip.

Somehow, he thinks the root cause is not in that list, and if he’s being honest with himself, as that little corner of his mind sometimes insists, he thinks it might be a shared affliction.

"Sherlock…"

"John - hang on, I have a plan - do you still have that little portable GPS?"

John blinks. “…Did you just tell me to _hang on_?”

The answering silence is filled with a comedic sort of horror.

"Oh my god, you did. You did." If John had any more energy left, he’d be wracked with laughter now, but his choices currently include hanging on and surviving or giving into his laughter and crashing the lion meetup below. "I am never letting you forget that," John promises, instead, his voice calm if strained.

Sherlock huffs out a sigh this time, and repeats, “GPS?”

"Yes, why?"

He looks up in time to see the sparkle in Sherlock’s eyes. “I’ve thought of something.”

"You have a plan."

"Yes." Again, that flare of light in those eyes. "I have a plan."


End file.
